2 Feb 2017

Barco, a provider of networked control room visualisation solutions, has signed an agreement with OBI Partners, a United States-based company providing advanced business intelligence solutions to the utilities sector.

Under this agreement, OBI Partners will leverage Barco’s X2O visual communications technology, which will enable the company to go to market faster with their industry-leading business intelligence solutions.

Transmission and Distribution solutions

Forward-thinking utilities are continuously seeking solutions that enhance knowledge and improve mission-critical decision making in their Transmission and Distribution (T&D) operational space. OBI has played an integral role in their success by providing operational business intelligence solutions, services and consulting to optimise network operations, service reliability and restoration performance.

Barco delivers collaborative visualisation solutions that empower control room operators with real-time situational awareness. Its X2O technology will be embedded into OBI Partners’ software products to enhance data visualisation in various ways, tailored to a customer’s specific needs. As a recognised standard web technology, the HTML5 design of X2O increases speed to market of OBI’s solutions.

Barco X20 platform

“Our focus has been to supply utilities with industry-leading solutions that enable them to make accurate, proactive decisions based on near real-time data. With the availability of information and technology, utilities customers now expect and demand service as well as answers to their questions,” comments Ray Kasten, President of OBI Partners “We are delighted to partner with Barco, as their X2O visualisation technology is industry leading and greatly simplifies go to market development times.”

"With our combined offering, the entire utility corporation can now enjoy a modern state-of-the-art, real-time view of operations"

Barco’s X2O platform is a powerful HTML5-based platform designed to improve communication channels, providing critical and real-time information that can then be immediately acted upon. It features intuitive tools for content generation and distribution to bring relevant information to the different stakeholders (internal and external) using standard web technologies. X2O presents data in a graphical form that is easy to interpret and also offers interactivity for immediate action or collaboration.  

Visualisation and operations solutions

“OBI Partners is led by a group of outstanding professionals with decades of operational experience within the utilities space and Barco is fortunate to team with them to serve the Utilities industry,” comments Hans Dekeyser, VP Strategic Marketing Industrial & Government. “This agreement enables Barco to better serve the industry with a full suite of visualisation solutions, including X2O visualisation technology but also through its new platform designed to increase operator efficiency, OpSpace. With our combined offering, the entire utility corporation – from the executive leadership to field operators – can now enjoy a modern state-of-the-art, real-time view of operations.”